Bankers Said `Anything' to Get High Rating, S&P Ex-Analyst Says - Bloomberg.com

Ng, who no longer works in the rating business, said in a telephone interview April 23 that while the Senate documents contain an "incomplete record," they show how banks pressured credit raters to lower standards as they created collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, during the housing boom.

"The bankers would say anything to get what they needed into their deals," Ng, 47, said. "Goldman is very good at looking at every deal; every CDO that's ever been issued." Ng said the perception among professionals in the ratings business was that the bank had a team that would look for "inconsistencies across different deals and use that to strong- arm Moody's, Fitch and S&P to change their criteria."